Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
by Shrapnel33
Summary: Nora can't sleep and MacCready goes to comfort her. Fallout 4 late game spoilers. Spoilers for MacCready story line. Established relationship between MacCready/Female Sole Survivor


It was pitch black when MacCready awoke, not even the ever present glow of Nora's Pip-Boy on her nightstand. Asides from the constant hum of the generators down the hall it was quiet.

He didn't know what had awoken him and without windows in the room it was difficult to tell what time it was, but he felt like he hadn't been asleep for very long, a couple hours at most. He sighed and rolled over, cautiously reaching across the white sheets to find Nora, trying not to disturb her. The bed they usually shared wasn't particularly large, so he immediately discovered the other half of the bed was empty, not even a lingering warmth from where she had laid when they went to bed together.

He sat up and flicked on the lamp on his bedside table, noting that she wasn't sitting at the table or lying on the couch like she sometimes did. He got up and grabbed his shirt from the chair beside the bed, pulling it on but leaving it unbuttoned before grabbing his knife from under his pillow, securing it on the belt he still wore. He had a habit of sleeping in his clothes, but Nora insisted he lose the shirt at night, wanting to feel the comfort of skin on skin, which he wasn't going to complain about, as long as she promised to pre-warm her ice cold hands or keep them the hell away from his skin. Some days they felt like she had just stepped out of the cryo tube.

He pulled open the heavy wooden door of the room and poked his head out, glancing down each direction of the hallway. One of the nighttime Minutemen guards was lounging in an old fold up chair by the archway to the courtyard, glancing up when he heard the door groan open. MacCready merely raised an eyebrow at the guard and he in turn wordlessly answered by pointing straight up. MacCready nodded and slipped back into the room, gathering a bottle of water and a couple of Nuka-Colas from the shitty old refrigerator in the corner. He paused for a minute, debating what else he should grab before deciding on a couple undamaged containers of Sugar Bombs and Potato Crisps.

Arms laden with food and drink, he left the room and made his way to the interior staircase down the hall. He regretted his armload and choice of route as he approached the stairs, the room at the bottom of the stairs currently being used to house at least a third of the generators for the whole castle, somehow jammed in tight like some sort of game. A word Nora had used while she was assembling them was "Tetris" but he wasn't really sure what that was. With his arms full he had no way to cover his ears from the roar of the generators so he moved as quickly as he could through the small space left specifically for getting to the stairs.

He bounded up the stairs two at a time and sighed as he burst into the cool night air, startling the Minuteman standing next to the artillery unit. They exchanged a quick nod and resumed their tasks, each man slightly embarrassed for their own reasons, the Minuteman for having allowed himself to be startled and MacCready for being suddenly self-conscious of the fact he still hadn't buttoned up his shirt before filling his hands with food and drinks.

Out in the open air, he could now hear quiet music coming from the east bastion, right above the original General's Quarters, which Nora had claimed as her power armour garage.. It was Nora's favorite place to sit, with the view of the Prydwen hanging over the airport to the left, the glow of Fort Strong across the bay ahead, and Spectre Island to the right. He quietly made his way across the top of the wall, glancing down into the courtyard and towards the barracks that had been built into the massive hole at what he considered the front of the Castle. The lights strung from the castle walls all the way to the top of the radio tower seemed to barely do anything, dimmed by the light of the full moon that made everything look like it was lit by a muted blue-tinted sun. MacCready even had a shadow, the moonlight casting it in a dark blue.

He found the source of the music, Nora's Pip-Boy, sitting on the edge of the threadbare mattress that no one had wanted to sleep on, so it had been drug to the top of the wall and left as a star gazing bed. As far as MacCready knew, he and Nora were the only ones that used it, and even they had only used it a couple of times. Nora had obviously dragged her scavenging bag up there with her since she was nearly completely hidden by a pile of what she called "comfy pillows". They already had four on the bed downstairs, one for him and three for her, but she still insisted on taking every single one she found on their ventures. Apparently tonight she had just upended her bag of pillows onto the mattress and plopped into it.

"Hey you," he said gently.

With lightning reflexes she reached out and snatched the Pip-Boy, snapping it shut on her wrist again while doing an impressive roll to her feet, her baseball bat seeming to appear out of nowhere.

"Whoa, hey, it's me. It's ok." He was careful not to raise his voice. Hollering wasn't really necessary since she wouldn't commit to the swing until she knew what she was swinging at.

"Oh geez, you scared me babe." she sighed as she dropped the bat to her side.

"Sorry, wasn't trying to be stealthy, but it's an old habit," he said, kneeling on the mattress and leaning the beverages and snacks against a pillow. A couple of empty beer bottles settled against his leg. He frowned at them and set them on the ground off of the bed. He picked up the water bottle and passed it to Nora, noting the wet marks on her cheeks. "Here, drink this. And sit down before you fall down."

She gratefully took the bottle and sank to her knees, downing a third of the bottle in one go.

"Easy there, don't try to drown yourself."

"Tried that already." she sighed, glancing at the beer bottles as she replaced the lid on the water bottle. "Didn't have enough. I think someone's getting into my cabinet while we're away and stealing my beer."

"Maybe Ronnie. I've heard she likes to indulge herself in the kitchen occasionally. Though there aren't many here who don't mind the odd drink now and then, so who knows "

"I don't blame them one bit." Nora relieved herself of her wrist computer once again, placing it within arms reach and tweaking the knob so the music was just a bit louder and tucked her bag against the edge of the mattress again. She sat there staring at the computer beside her, tear marks smudging the bits of grime on her cheeks.

MacCready knelt in front of her, studying her face for a minute. It hurt to see her in pain like this. He didn't think of himself as a funny guy, which he regretted at that moment since the only thing he wanted right then was to see her smile. But he could also understand wanting to feel sad just for the sake of feeling some sort of emotion. They had been travelling together for weeks? Maybe even months now, barely taking the time to relax or think about how they felt. It was so easy to shut off the emotions and see things in a flat out moral right or wrong way, killing anything that was wrong and just leaving the things that were acceptable the way they were.

"How long have you been up here?" he finally asked.

She blinked to bring her eyes into focus again and peered at the small clock on the computer. "it's two AM. So about three hours."

He toppled forwards, wrapping his arm around her chest and pulling her down with him. She shrieked in surprise as she landed on her back in the pile of pillows, clutched his arm where he was wrapped around her.

His voice was muffled by the pillow he had face planted into when he spoke. "You mean to tell me that you barely waited til I was asleep to abandon me all alone down there?"

She gave a half-hearted smirk, blinking back more tears. "I couldn't sleep. Thinking too much."

"Could've woken me up and we could've thought together." He shifted himself onto his shoulder and pulled himself closer to her, snaking an arm underneath her to pull her close to his chest.

"I was thinking about my baby."

MacCready was quiet for a minute, listening to the music playing from the Pip-Boy. He realised now that the only song playing was that one from the Diamond City radio station about rain falling in everyone's lives but too much was falling in the singer's life. He had just heard the song end, but now it was starting again. Travis must've fallen asleep at his desk and left the record playing on repeat.

"Sounds to me like you're not talking about Father."

"No." She snapped, almost too quickly. "I'm not talking about Father. I'm talking about my baby."

He squeezed her tighter, reminding himself that it had only felt like weeks for her when in reality 60 years had passed.

Her mind must've been on the same track as the next time she spoke she said, "He should only be a little baby. You know he was only five months old when we went in?" She posed it as a question but didn't wait for an answer. "And now he looks old enough to be my own dad and I don't know anything about him, asides from the fact he's become the leader of a group that leaves the entire Commonwealth in fear." Even with her arms trapped between their bodies, she still tried to talk with her hands, fingers flying this way and that, nearly brushing MacCready's chin several times. "I was supposed to be there when he took his first steps, I was supposed to teach him how to speak, take him to school, deal with his rebellious years." She paused to laugh, "God, if he was anything like me it would've been awful." She quieted down again and laid her forehead against his chest. "But now I resent that I never had the opportunity to even take a shot at it. And that man in charge of the Institute is not my son. He's an old man with zero compassion for anyone." Another pause, and then a whisper, "he can burn in Hell for all I care."

They lay quietly for several minutes, Nora with her head buried in MacCreadys shirt, MacCready staring at the few stars visible through the bright moonlight. He had no idea what to say. He didn't disagree with her, but was almost too scared to agree with her.

The silence stretched, the Pip-Boy and the occasional sniffle the only sounds breaking it. They lay there long enough for MacCready to realize the same song had played at least four times in a row.

"Uh, Nora."

A muffled _*mmhh*_ was the only answer.

"Did you record this song from the radio onto an audio tape to listen to on repeat?"

 _*Mmhh.*_

"I swear that song plays ten times a day as it is, aren't you sick of it yet."

 _*Mmhh.*_

They fell silent again as the song ended and restarted.

"Because I am. I am very sick of this song."

Nora disentangled herself from his arms, reaching for the Pip-Boy and ejecting the audio tape, tucking it back into her bag. She flipped it back to the radio before settling back on the mattress again. Travis stuttered his way through some ad reads for a bit and then the same song started playing through the tiny speakers. MacCready groaned, grabbing one of the pillows and pretending to stifle himself with it.

Nora laughed, wiping the tears from her face. "What can I say, the world hates me."

MacCready hugged the pillow to his chest, the look on his face as he looked at her only able to be described as fondness. "Not the whole world."

She gave a small smile, rolling over to get closer to him again. "What is Duncan like?"

His breath caught in his throat for a second. He'd be lying if he hadn't already been thinking of Duncan, but he wasn't used to having anyone ask about him. It was nice and he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to talk about the light of his life. "He's feisty. He got that from his mother. He's smart and fast. I swear he had only been walking for a week before he was running from one end of the settlement to the other. I taught him how to strip a gun and clean it already, I imagine by now he can do it faster than me. He would've turned five recently." He paused, his throat tightening. "That is.. if the cure got to him in time."

Now it was Nora's turn to hug him close. "Daisy hasn't heard anything back yet?"

"No. We haven't stopped by in a week though."

Regret was evident on her face. "I'm sorry. You know you can tell me to stop somewhere, right? We could've been there tonight instead of coming back here."

"If I'd known we would've been sleeping outside on a mattress no better than the ones at the Rexford, I would've suggested it."

"Hey, at least at the Rexford we would have a roof over our heads."

"And miss this beautiful night? It would've been a shame." He was gazing at her again.

She patted him on the cheek and smiled, her eyes finally dry. "How 'bout we go downstairs where we have a roof over our heads and a bed ten times better than any of the beds in Good Neighbour?"

"Sounds pretty good to me," he eagerly agreed, grabbing fistfuls of pillows and stuffing them back in her backpack, packing the forgotten beverages and snacks in along with them.

They got to their feet together, MacCready capturing her hand within his own as they walked towards the staircase.

"Want to serve up some justice tomorrow and wipe out the Institute?"

Nora's white teeth seemed to glow in the moonlight as her face cracked into a massive smile, her hand tightening around his. "I thought you'd never ask."

He squeezed her hand back and pulled her to a stop, his face going serious. "And maybe afterwards... We could check in with Daisy. And then I should go back to Duncan. Even if she hasn't heard, I need to know, I need to go check on him and if he's still alive I need to be with him."

"So.. We destroy the Institute and are able to properly settle down and you're just going to leave me here?" Noras face was awash in sadness.

"Not unless you want me to. Or you could come with me? We could settle down there. Or we could go get Duncan and bring him back here if you'd rather be here. I don't care where we live, all I care about is having you and Duncan with me."

The glowing smile appeared again. "I'd like that. I'd like that very much."

MacCready's eyes crinkled as he smiled, finally pulling her in for a kiss in the pale moonlight. A cat call whistle from the guard on the bastion at the top of the stairs made them separate, MacCready looking embarrassed for the second time that night and Nora levelling a murderous stink eye at the guard, who quickly turned around, suddenly finding the dark ocean to be a fascinating view.

The two of them hurried past the guard, down the stairs and hallway, and finally to their quarters. Once the door was shut and privacy restored they weren't sure if they should laugh about the situation or be serious because of the decision they were going to be making when the sun rose.

They looked at each other in the dim light of MacCready's still lit side table lamp and both finally cracked, snorting and giggling at the absurdity of being caught like school kids kissing on the playground. It took a minute to compose themselves, but by the time they did, they were both in bed, MacCready's shirt once again banished to the chair, weapons stowed within reach, lights off, and arms wrapped around each other. They were quiet for a minute before Nora broke the silence.

"Are we going to be ok after this?"

Pause.

"I don't know about being ok. But we're going to be alive. And as long as we have each other, I think we'll be just fine."


End file.
